How building harmony at Ferrari has raised the prospect of a 10th home victory for Hamilton

If there was anything emblematic of Lewis Hamilton’s struggles in his first year with Ferrari, it was his inability to reach the podium at Silverstone for the first time since 2013. Breaking into the top three had been tantalisingly close, but the unlikely prevailed; Nico Hulkenberg kept the seven-time champion at arm’s length and resisted Hamilton’s undercut attempt to clinch a first podium after 15 years in Formula 1.  

It was a feel-good story for everyone except Hamilton himself, who looked increasingly forlorn as the 2025 season narrative continued to twist, turn, and twist once more. For all the internet-breaking heft of his move to Ferrari, the early promise and ethereal, romantic qualities of his maiden ride with the Prancing Horse failed to stand up to the scrutiny of cold, hard results.  

Hamilton was left to contend with the very real problems incurred in moving to a new team: incompatibility and intransigence proved something of a buffer in his efforts to mould the team to his liking. It took a year or so to get there, but Hamilton has shuffled his side of the garage around to find comfort in his new home.  

With support from team principal Fred Vasseur, Hamilton has been able to push for those changes. Carlo Santi has since stepped up as his race engineer; the occasionally tetchy radio exchanges between Hamilton and former incumbent Riccardo Adami suggested that the two were not necessarily compatible.

There was no bad blood, it was just business; you can’t build a relationship under sheer force of will. Santi, expected to be a temporary arrangement, has been described by Hamilton as his “Italian Bono” – so he may remain in the role for a bit longer than anticipated.

So far, it’s worked. Ferrari has evidently built a very good car, albeit missing a little bit of downforce and a smattering of engine performance; the Ferrari power unit has been offered two potential upgrades through the Additional Development and Upgrade Opportunities system to help it to catch up.

Yet it’s been rapid off the line at the starts of races, its cause helped by a smaller, lighter turbocharger. Much of that advantage has been eroded after the other power unit manufacturers lobbied for the pre-start phase to combat the effects of turbo lag; Ferrari, meanwhile, pre-empted that this would present a genuine issue, so was understandably upset that the goalposts had been moved.  

Team principal Vasseur has supported Hamilton’s suggested changes at Ferrari

Photo by: Alastair Staley / LAT Images via Getty Images

Loss of starting advantage aside, Hamilton has been much more comfortable with his lot so far in 2026. He puts this down to “inheriting” a 2025 car with its key characteristics set in stone, while this year’s SF-26 has been moulded to the combined feedback from Hamilton and Charles Leclerc.  

“I went from a season in a car that I inherited, to a car that I’ve had input into,” he says. “There’s elements of the car that I’d asked for and the team listened, which has been great. It’s a collaboration of many, many, many different elements all coming together.

“With a car, it’s very complex. It’s not one thing that changes everything. It’s a combination of many things, moving parts coming together and working together in synergy, and I think we are finally in a place where we’re working really, really well as a team collectively.

“Every single person in this team has something to bring to the table, and my goal when I arrived was to try to encourage everyone to try to push, to elevate. We all can always elevate and be better, including myself, and I’ve arrived this year with a much better mentality, fitter, and a much better approach.

“Every single person in this team has something to bring to the table, and my goal when I arrived was to try to encourage everyone to try to push, to elevate” Lewis Hamilton

“I think it’s been a real positive feeling, the harmony between myself and my personal team and the racing team is better than it’s ever been. It’s taken us a good year to get to know each other and we’re more aligned than ever. This is a good foundation for us to then build on moving forwards.”

It’s an indicator of how dearly Hamilton wants to make a success of his time at Ferrari. And, after 2025 resembled something of a damp squib following the gargantuan levels of hype that preceded his move, 2026 has started on a much better footing.

A year on from his sprint win in China, the headline result from Hamilton’s first year with the team, he claimed his first grand prix podium with third. It was fitting that he shared the rostrum with Kimi Antonelli, who claimed his first F1 win that weekend, and George Russell; in reverse order, the ghosts of Mercedes past, present and future.

Keeping Verstappen at bay for second-place finish in Montreal and repeating the result in Monaco showed a corner’s been turned

Photo by: Cristobal Herrera-Ulashkevich / via Getty Images

His second-place finishes in Montreal and Monaco illustrated that the corner had been well and truly turned, the first after dispatching Max Verstappen around the outside at Turn 1 before fending off the Red Bull driver, and his breakthrough victory in the Barcelona GP confirmed that Ferrari and Hamilton are now a winning force.

Hamilton has found the confidence needed to convince Ferrari to ring further changes. Beyond the switches in personnel, Hamilton kept a watching vigil during his visits to Maranello and began to ask questions about the team’s processes. Much of it didn’t bear any immediate fruit, as Ferrari stopped developing its 2025 car early; the decision to change the entirety of its front-end suspension package was therefore left under-developed, perhaps a contributing factor in Hamilton’s growing frustration.

But he believes that his efforts to “galvanise” the team have carried into the team’s 2026 weapon, the first Ferrari to be led by Loic Serra – whom Hamilton worked with at Mercedes. He explained that he encouraged the team to be innovative, again crediting Vasseur for releasing the shackles from the design team.

Historically, Ferrari has felt external pressure from a voracious media scene in Italy, which has often been used to explain why engineers play it safe. Whether that holds water is unknown, but it’s true that Ferrari has captured the imagination with its ‘Macarena’ rear wing, and exploitation of the exhaust winglet, which has become widely copied down the grid.  

Hamilton: “When you’re in a scenario where you know what’s needed to improve, and you shout it from the top of the mountain and it doesn’t get done necessarily because it can’t be done immediately, or it can’t happen until the next year because of the regulations, whatever it may be, it’s like banging your head against the wall and it’s tough. For example, last year, one of the things I was asked was, ‘Where is our innovation? Ferrari should be the innovators; they should be the ones that all the teams are trying to copy.’

“This year you see us arrive with innovative things that other people have followed and there is a lot more innovation coming, which is really exciting. I think probably the fact that I’m now starting to see some of those things happen, and Fred has really been great with working with me and helping make certain changes that I’ve wanted, and that just kind of releases you to get up and do what you do best.”

The popular theory is that Hamilton is much more at home with the 2026-grade, lower-downforce cars than the floor-hugging ground-effect machinery from 2022 to 2025, but this is something that the man himself disputes. Let’s not forget that the rules coincided with Mercedes’ fall from the upper rung of F1’s pecking order, with the Brackley squad never recovering from the development wrong turns it made in the opening year of those rules.

Hamilton claimed career grand prix victory #106 – and his first with Ferrari – in June’s Barcelona GP

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / LAT Images via Getty Images

Hamilton lost his reference point, while Russell had an easier time adapting to the capricious W13, but it’s forgotten that Hamilton was the stronger driver over the course of 2023. It’s not like Hamilton never won races with those cars either.  

“People do talk about my driving style not working with the previous car, and for sure I was less happy in the previous car,” he states. “But I still won races and still was able to pull out great races, and think about Silverstone [in 2024], for example. I think if your driving style doesn’t suit the generation, you don’t get a win. I think it’s just been learning how to adapt.

“Last year, there were many elements that just wouldn’t work for me with the set-up that we had here, and it’s taken a long time to get those things changed. We’ve started to see those things change, and for that I’m really grateful.”

So, what’s the betting that he can take a 10th British Grand Prix victory? Hamilton might need Lady Luck and Father Fortune to collaborate on the circumstances

Let’s remind ourselves of that Silverstone race, Hamilton’s record-setting ninth win at a single circuit. That strangely cool day began with an early tete-a-tete between the Mercedes pair, the McLarens and Verstappen’s Red Bull, and the arrival of light rain began to shake up the order.

Polesitter Russell had been joined by Hamilton in their escape from their three pursuers, setting themselves up for a lead battle as the rain began to fall. Lando Norris soon made a successful play for the lead, either side of pitting for intermediate tyres, but lost it once more when McLaren was too late in responding to the drying circuit. Hamilton’s switch to the soft compound of slicks was timed to perfection, yielding an emotional win – his first in almost three years.  

So, what’s the betting that he can take a 10th British Grand Prix victory? Hamilton might need Lady Luck and Father Fortune to collaborate on the circumstances, since Ferrari is lacking performance versus Mercedes, particularly through the plethora of high-speed sections around the former RAF base. The Great British Summer can surprise, however, and if there’s a chance that Ferrari can find a set of conditions that allows it to perform, expect Hamilton to take his chance, just as he did in Spain.

This article is one of many in the monthly Autosport magazine. For more premium content, take a look at the August 2026 issue and subscribe today.

Emotional Silverstone win #9 came in 2024 – what chance double figures?

Photo by: Erik Junius